


Red-Tinted Nightmares

by Salmon_Pink



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: avengers_tables, Community: ladiesbingo, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 17:31:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6249061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon_Pink/pseuds/Salmon_Pink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her dreams, Wanda sees the end of the world, over and over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red-Tinted Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Potential spoilers for the trailers and character posters for _Captain America: Civil War_. Written for [Ladies Bingo](http://ladiesbingo.dreamwidth.org/), prompt "apocafic", and for [Avengers Tables](http://avengers-tables.livejournal.com/), prompt "nightmares".

The dreams are worse, so much worse since Sokovia. 

Wanda’s had nightmares for as long as she can remember, waking up as a child shivering and calling for her parents, Pietro’s worried young eyes looking down at her. But now those nightmares are more vivid, more terrible, an inescapable curse every time she closes her eyes.

In Wanda’s dreams, she sees a bird made of flames cloaking the entire world in pain. She sees her comrades dressed in tattered rags and with skin rotting on their bones as they shuffle across the battlefield. She sees a shining herald and a creature that feeds on planets. She sees snarling apes beating heroes to death with bloodied paws. She sees a being with an evil smile and a fist of gold wielding the means to destroy them all. She sees herself lost in a swirl of magic and grief as her power warps the very fabric of reality.

Every night Wanda sees the end of the world.

Nowadays, it’s not her parents that are there when she wakes, it’s not Pietro’s young face. It’s Natasha who looks down at her instead, her brow creased with worry, her hands carefully gentle as they touch Wanda’s shoulders.

“I saw…” Wanda whispers, and her throat is hoarse, her cheeks wet with tears. 

There’s a faint red glow in the air, the taste of magic; chairs have been throw across the room and clothes strewn across the floor. Wanda knows that she’s the culprit, that her powers have lashed out during her dreams. She’s terrified that one day she’ll wake and find Natasha hurt at Wanda’s hand, but Natasha won’t hear it when Wanda begs her to sleep in her own room.

“My life is one giant risk,” Natasha likes to tell her. “But of all the risks I take, staying with you is the one that’s _worth_ it.”

Wanda’s so scared she’ll hurt Natasha, and so angry at herself, because despite it all there’s a part of her that’s so grateful Natasha stays.

“I saw…” she says again, blinking the last of the nightmare away, and Natasha pulls her close, wraps her arms tight around Wanda’s middle and presses lips to her hair. Shushing her quietly, letting Wanda bury her face against Natasha’s throat and squeeze her eyes shut until the tears stop, until the shaking subsides.

“It’s okay,” Natasha promises, and Wanda wants to believe her. She wants to let Natasha’s words wash over her and chase away the fears. “It’s not real, it wasn’t real.”

Wanda hopes she’s right. Because in her nightmare, she saw herself and Natasha standing on opposite sides of a war, torn between friends and duty. She saw them fighting, trying to hurt each other, she saw violence between people who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and Wanda’s heart aches at the very thought.

With everything she has lost, she can’t lose Natasha too.

“It was just a dream,” Natasha murmurs, lacing their fingers together, drawing Wanda’s hand up so she can lay sweet kisses across the knuckles, her breath warming Wanda’s skin.

“Just a dream,” Wanda echoes. There’s a part of her that doesn’t quite believe the words, a part of her that’s cold and hard and bitter. But Natasha kisses her, and Wanda lets the touch thaw that coldness within her, ignoring the whispers of warning at the back of her mind.

After all, it was only a nightmare, and not all dreams come true.


End file.
